10

- Sophia -

“This was good,” I say and venture a thumbs-up. Jax'zan frowns, and then I wince. I better be careful with hand gestures. They might mean something quite different here.

I finish the meat. It's not bad, but I'm not used to eating steaks for breakfast. I'd kill for some coffee right about now. And maybe a newspaper and a croissant, now that I'm dreaming. Or my cell phone. None of the girls have them here, because we all have to leave our phones and tablets outside the lab to protect the sensitive equipment there from their radio signals.

I wonder what's happening on Earth right now. Was that a real alien invasion? I mean, every news channel has to be blowing up about the abductions, at least. Maybe all us girls are front page news right now, with our pictures and our names and everything. Or maybe there's no one left on Earth. It did look like the aliens only wanted women, though.

And now I have to find mine. My clothes have dried out during the night, but I don't feel too clean.

“Excuse me.”

I walk behind a large bush for a little while, then back into the cave too see if I can wash a little. But Jax'zan shouts something and I turn.

He's on his feet and comes over, not too happy. He lightly takes hold of my upper arm and looks at me, very seriously. “Veek tees tedd,” he says.

“This is an important place,” says another voice, and I almost jump out of my skin. Jax'zan lets go of my arm and draws his sword in a movement so fast he's just a blur.

We both look around. No one.

That voice was familiar, though. Very familiar. So damn chipper.

Then I remember the translator.

I sheepishly pull the little thing out of my pocket and show it to Jax'zan. “I think it was this.”

“Yah tro rdehvar de ne,” the translator says brightly.

Jax'zan's eyes widen and his jaw drops. It's pretty unsettling to look at – I mean, he has eight very pointy fangs and it reminds me that he can probably rip my throat out just like that. But I get the feeling that he can also protect me really well, and I feel another nice little tingle down below.

“Yeah, this might come in handy,” I say, and the translator says something in a language that sounds a lot like Jax'zan's. Except its bright, girly voice is totally wrong for him. But that can't be changed.

I scratch my head and stare at the flat little translator in the palm of my hand. Sure, it does use a state-of-the-art chip with AI capabilities, but I had no idea it could teach itself an alien language this fast. It should need at least a hundred sentences to learn the even the basic structure of an Earth language. I guess it's better than we'd thought.

Jax'zan growls.

“Alien magic,” the translator says.

Hm. I'm not sure how smart it is to make him think that this is magic. I have a feeling primitive people can react badly to that. I know witch-burning was a popular thing on Earth back in the day. But I'm also not sure how to explain the chip and the tech and the algorithms. But then again, I'd struggle to explain that to myself.

“Not really,” I say, and the translator dutifully translates. Or so I hope. “It's just a tool.”

Jax'zan peers at it and then seems to shrug. He places his sword back in his belt, takes my hand and leads me back to the fire and away from the opening of the cave.

An important place, huh? I wonder if it can mean a sacred place. It did kind of feel like a church. Or a cathedral.

Jax'zan wraps some grilled meat in leaves and places them in his bag, and then I guess we're ready to go somewhere. I have my gun and my translator and the damp clothes on my back. And I have a mission.

I point up the hill towards what I think is the mountain where the tuna can crash landed. “I have to get back to the girls. Could you please help me?”

He points the other way and speaks. “Home. Safe,” the translator offers. “Chosen one. Mother.”

I'm guessing he wants to take me home to his village to show me to his parents. Which makes a lot of sense. But I can't come.

I point again. “My friends are up there. They need help.”

He glances up there and says something. “Important hill. Forbidden,” the translator says. “Bune.”

Forbidden, huh? I guess probably he or his people made that pile of rocks with the spears that's supposed to be a warning. If so, it might be pretty hard to get him to go up there. Just my luck if the tuna can landed on a holy mountain.

“I have to go there. My friends are in danger. They need help.” I take a couple of steps up the hill, so he can see that I'm not really asking. I'm telling him. I have to do this.

He grunts. “Danger. Important hill. Death.”

Well, I can't expect him to follow me there if he thinks it will kill him. I have probably done enough damage to people already. “You don't have to come. I'll go alone.”

And I totally will. I may be the bitch and coward of the story, but I'm not abandoning the girls.

Jax'zan is frowning and his eyes are smouldering more than ever. “Important place. Danger. Not go.”

I should probably avoid making him angry. I put my hand into my pockets and lightly grip the gun.

“I really have to go there,” I say as a last attempt. “It's my sacred duty.” Maybe inserting some holiness into this will help him relent.

He considers it and frowns. But he can consider all he wants. This isn't his decision to make.

I take a deep breath and turn my back, walking up the hill. I put a little extra swing into my hips. Maybe my ass will convince him when pure reason won't.

I glance behind me. He's still standing there, frowning.

My heart sinks in my chest. Well, it was worth a try. I walk on with less hip movements. The hillside is pretty steep.

Then I hear Jax'zan grunt something that sounds angry.

“Human waste,” the translator chirps. Yes, that sounds like the polite version of what he said.

And then the caveman comes walking up to me with long, strong strides. He points up the side of the hill. “Friends?”

I jut my chin out in the way that I hope means 'yes'. “Friends.”

He fixes his stare on me and I have a strong urge to flinch and look away, because it's like looking straight into Judgement Day. “Danger.”

But I hold my own and stare right back. I won't back down on this. “Friends.”

He takes a deep breath, glances up the hill and blows air out between his teeth in a way that means damn it on Earth. Then he starts walking up the steep incline.

I scramble after him. He really doesn't want to do this. It's pretty obvious he's doing it for my sake only. My heart overflows with gratitude and I'm so moved I want to cry. I feel much safer with him by my side and I will absolutely want to reward him for that later. One way or the other.

His strong back and his powerful legs and his cute little butt flex and move in front of me, and I keep close to him. I keep lookout upwards. Those not-dactyls scared me almost to death yesterday, and this mountain is where they came upon us. Probably this is where they live and that's the reason Jax'zan says it's forbidden.

But when the attack comes, it's not from above. I see Jax'zan snap his head around. He yells something that the translator doesn't catch, and in a split second his sword is in his hand and he's beside me, taking my hand and yanking me so I'm behind him. Only then do I see what he's spotted – it's a giant centipede the size of a living room couch, just much longer. It has many long tentacles sticking out from its front, as well as two black scissor-like blades. It zigzags and slithers up the hill at amazing speed, and I can feel the blood drain from my face. That's the worst thing I've ever seen, and it's coming right for us.

Jax'zan puts an arm behind him so he's shielding me, and then he winds up and throws his sword. It rotates through the air and hits the terrible creature right in the middle of its face, cleaving the whole thing in half for at least the first six feet of its body. The rest of the centipede slowly falls over.

Jax'zan goes down the slope and yanks his sword out of the dead thing, then wipes it on the grass and comes back up to me with a little grin on his face. “Very dangerous,” he says unnecessarily.

I'm shaking like a leaf and I cling to him when he gets to me. “Damn, that thing scared me.”

He hugs me with one arm and says something more. “Danger. But Zopia safe with Jax'zan,” the translator says.

Oh my heavens. If he hadn't come along, and I had been alone here when that thing charged ...

I can't finish the thought. I just shudder and cling to him a little more before I let him go. “Thanks. That was a fantastic throw.”

He just smirks and we continue upwards, me on shaky legs. The vegetation gets thicker the further up the hill we get, and I recognize plants that look a lot like ferns. That makes this place look even more jurassic.

Jax'zan turns around and I reflexively scurry to seek shelter behind his broad back.

But he doesn't get out his sword, just points down the hill. “Ehn Stoh hr.”

“A Big,” the translator says.

“Uh-huh?” I say and look down the valley from behind his back. And sure enough, that's a pretty big thing he's seeing. It's far away, probably a couple of miles at least.

“Ohmigod, that's huge!” It's a real dinosaur. It's huge and lumbering and it walks on six legs, moving just one of them at a time like those huge walking machines in some of the Star Wars movies. It's easily a hundred feet long and covered in what looks like dirty feathers. It looks like it's walking backwards, because the tiny head is placed on top of an extremely long neck at the far back of its body. But the tail is right behind there, too, so that's probably just the way it evolved, walking with most of its body first and the neck last. It's strangely graceful and it's totally mesmerizing to watch it.

Jax'zan puts his hands on his hips and doesn't seem too worried. The dino isn't coming in our direction, so I allow myself to relax and just admire it. I can hear the ground thunder distantly each time it puts a foot down on the ground, and it has to weigh the same as an apartment building.

Why feathers, though? Surely that thing can't fly.

Jax'zan points. “Seh.”

“Look,” comes the translation.

“Oh my.” Someone is stalking the huge dinosaur. Two smaller creatures are closing in on it from the sides, clearly about to attack it from either side. They're black with yellow stripes and they look extremely deadly, with large, streamlined heads and mouths that look very large from where we're standing. They have spikes along their spines and a whole bunch of long, whip-like tails each. They have two legs in front, but I have trouble seeing what's holding them up further back.

We watch in silence as the two predators close in on the huge dino. Then they pounce, both at the same time from opposite directions. The victim puts its little head back and rears two of its front legs into the air, and a second later we can hear its scream – a deep, piercing howl like a foghorn. The two attackers appear to have bitten themselves onto the dino's sides, and they're chomping down on it hard. And now I can see their rear parts. They have huge wheels in the middle of their bodies, and they're clearly part of them. I see the reason too, now – they're hanging onto the dino with their mouths, it's still moving, and the attackers can roll effortlessly along with it on their wheels while using their energy to bite down.

“They've got it,” I state. It makes me sad – that huge goofy-looking dino was just minding its own business, and now I can see its feathered flanks dark with blood. Still the foghorn noise persists, but the dino doesn't seem to be fighting back in any other way.

“Not yet,” Jax'zan says through the translator. And now I see why. There are two more creatures moving in, large and squat six-legged creatures with big, triangular heads and the same feathery look as the big one. They're different from it, but at the same time there's something very similar about them. They approach the attackers from each side, and then they ram their heads into the wheels and jam them.

Immediately a lot of dust rises around the altercation as the wheels that are a part of the attackers stop turning and start scraping up the ground. The foghorn sound stops and the attackers both lose their grips on the dino. They fall to the ground and the two defenders immediately pounce on them while the huge goofy one keeps on walking away. By the end the attackers are slinking off back the way they came, and the defenders trot after the dino.

“Are those its kids?” I ask out loud. They're totally different, but strangely similar.

“No,” Jax'zan says, amused. “Seh.”